4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Ophelia
The next morning, Ophelia answered six calls about Canal Works.
She kept her voice calm through all of them.
The grant representative wanted a copy of the cancellation notice.
A member of the advisory group wanted to know whether they should warn the families.
One of the planners asked if she should stop work. Mara called last.
“I’m sorry,” Mara said. “I know you must be getting this from everyone.”
Ophelia pressed two fingers to the ache between her eyes. The notice glowed on her computer screen. Transfer request closed. Property returned to strategic portfolio.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Ophelia said.
“Lucy asked me if they were still planting the tree.”
Ophelia shut her eyes. “What did you tell her?”
“That grown-ups were sorting something out.” Mara paused. “Was that a lie?”
“No.” Ophelia made the word firm. “I’m sorting it out.”
She didn’t say that the grown-up she needed to sort it out with had already lied to her.
“Do you need us to do anything?” Mara asked.
“Not yet. Let me talk to Gideon first.”
Again.
“All right.”
“Mara, I meant what I told you. I’m not giving up on Canal Works.”
“I know.” The trust in Mara’s voice hurt more than doubt would have. “That’s why I called you.”
When the call ended, Ophelia sat still for a moment.
Then she pulled Gideon’s copy of the proposal from the shelf beside her desk.
She had carried it there from his study weeks ago, after the paper flags stopped meaning anything.
The navy cover was clean. Too clean. The small paper flags she had placed on the pages that needed his attention had never moved.
There were no bent corners, no notes in his sharp handwriting, no sign that he had opened it beyond the first page.
She laid the cancellation notice on top of it and wrote down the points she needed to make. The grant, the work already done, the families, the cost of moving. The reason the site could not be swapped for another old building on another block. Facts. Clear and useful.
She hated that she was still trying to earn the right to be heard by speaking Gideon’s language.
He had sent her one message after she’d forwarded the notice: We’ll discuss it at home tonight. No apology. No explanation for telling her there had been no final decision when the final notice had already been on its way.
Still, she prepared. Because Mara trusted her. Because Lucy wanted a maple tree. Because the proposal held years of her work, and she refused to let Gideon reduce those years to a wife’s hurt feelings.
***
That evening, dinner waited on the table at Astor Street.
Ophelia had chosen the smaller dining room because the large one made two people feel like strangers. She had set the proposal beside her plate. The cancellation notice rested on top. By the time the food cooled, she had read the same paragraph so many times that the words stopped making sense.
At last, the front door opened. Ophelia stood.
She heard Gideon’s low voice, then a woman answered him.
Simone walked in beside him. Both of them carried folders.
Gideon’s tie was loose, and Simone had pulled her dark hair into a quick knot.
They looked tired but not drained. Their faces held the sharp energy of people who had found a problem worth solving.
Gideon saw Ophelia and stopped.
“You’re still up,” he said.
She looked at the dinner table, then back at him. “You said we’d discuss Canal Works tonight.”
“We will.” He glanced at the proposal under her hand. “Simone found another issue in the expansion plan. We need the larger screen in my office.”
Simone’s gaze moved to the table. Her expression changed. “I didn’t know you were waiting for him.”
“Neither did I,” Ophelia said.
Gideon frowned. “I told you we would talk. I didn’t give you a time.”
There it was. A promise cut down until only the exact words remained.
“No,” Ophelia said. “You didn’t.”
Simone shifted the folders against her chest. “I can take the files back to the office. We can go through them in the morning.”
“That wastes time,” Gideon said. “We’re already here.”
He walked toward his office. Simone hesitated.
“Phee…”
“You should go,” Ophelia told her.
Relief flickered across Simone’s face before she understood.
Ophelia forced herself to add, “He’s waiting.”
Simone gave one small nod and followed Gideon. The office door closed.
Ophelia sat down again. She told herself Gideon would need a little while.
Then a little longer. She didn’t touch the food.
The house stayed quiet except for the low murmur beyond the office door and the soft click of Simone’s shoes when she crossed the room inside. Light showed under the closed door.
Ophelia read the cancellation notice once more. She arranged the edges of the pages. She moved her water glass away from the proposal so it couldn’t leave a ring on the cover.
Then Gideon laughed. The sound was low and brief.
Familiar. It went through her with the same sharp force it had at Hale Court.
He had laughed like that in bed with her once, his face pressed into her neck because she had mocked the serious voice he used on business calls.
He had laughed in a rainstorm when they were dating and both of them had given up trying to stay dry.
He had laughed over terrible takeout when they first moved in together and had not yet hired a private chef.
She had spent years believing that part of him had been buried under work. It had not been buried. He had taken it somewhere else.
Ophelia stood and picked up the proposal. She walked to the study, considered knocking, but then changed her mind and simply opened the door. This was her house, after all.
Gideon and Simone were bent over a set of plans on his desk. A map filled the wall screen. Gideon had removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves to his forearms. Simone was pointing at a marked section with one hand while holding a half-eaten sandwich in the other.
They both looked up.
“Ophelia,” Gideon said. “I told you we would talk when we finished.”
“It’s been hours.”
He checked his watch. Of course he did.
Simone set the sandwich down. “I’m sorry. We lost track.”
“You lost track,” Ophelia repeated.
“We found a workable route around the rail restriction,” Simone said. “It opened up three other pieces, and we kept going.”
Her face was bright with pride. Gideon looked at her with the same focused approval Ophelia had watched through the glass wall at Hale Tower.
“It’s good work,” he said.
“It is,” Ophelia said. “I’m sure it is.”
Something in her voice made Simone’s pride fade.
“I should leave,” she said. She reached for her folder. “I don’t have a husband waiting for me, so I forget other people do.”
Silence followed.
Simone went pale. “That came out wrong.”
“Did it?” Ophelia asked.
“Yes.” She looked stricken now. “Ophelia, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“Stay,” Gideon said.
Ophelia turned to him.
“We’re close to finishing,” he continued. “There’s no reason to throw away the work because of a bad joke.”
Simone stared at him. “Gideon.”
“You’ve been at this since early this morning. You gave up your whole evening. I’m not sending you away when your work is the reason we have a solution.”
Ophelia felt something inside her go very still.
“Her sacrifice matters to you,” she whispered.
Gideon’s attention shifted back to her. “Of course it matters. She’s doing her job, and she’s doing it well.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” His patience had an edge now. “Because you came in here angry at her for helping me solve a real problem.”
Real. For one strange second, Ophelia felt calm. The hurt was still there, but it no longer ran loose inside her. It had a shape now. She crossed the room and put the proposal on the clear edge of his desk. The cancellation notice lay on top.
“I sent her those studies. You used my own work to take it from me.”
Gideon looked down at the notice. “Hale didn’t take your work.”
“You took Canal Works.”
“The property belongs to Hale Global.”
“It was promised to Threshold.”
“And I told you we’ll find another site.”
“This is the site.”
“That’s an emotional position, not a practical one.”
Simone drew in a breath. “I think I really should go.”
“No,” Gideon said without looking at her. “We need to finish.”
Ophelia gave a short laugh, though nothing was funny. “Yes. God forbid anything interrupt the real work.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“You didn’t need to.”
His jaw tightened. “I understand that you care about the project.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“What is it for?”
He stared at her.
“Not the summary,” she said. “Not the line someone put in your expansion report. Tell me what Canal Works is for.”
“Housing.”
The single word landed between them.
“For whom?”
“Ophelia.”
“Name one person waiting for it.”
His face went blank in the careful way it did when he didn’t want anyone to see that he lacked an answer.
She nodded. “What did I say in my speech?”
“At the ball?”
“The ball you promised to attend.”
“I apologized for missing it.”
“What did I say?”
He glanced toward Simone, and the movement was so small another person might not have noticed it. Ophelia noticed everything now.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Have you read the proposal?”
“I read the summary.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I have enough information to make the business decision.”
“You have enough information to destroy my decision.”
“This is not a useful way to discuss it.”
“Useful to whom?”
“To anyone.” Gideon stepped away from the desk. “You’re upset. I understand that. But we can’t turn one property decision into a judgment on our entire marriage.”
“One property decision?” She looked at Simone, then back at him. “You give her everything you claim you don’t have.”
Simone’s shoulders stiffened. “Ophelia, there’s nothing…”
“I know.” Ophelia held up a hand. “I know there’s nothing sexual between you.”
Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “Then why are we having this conversation as if there is?”
“We aren’t.”
“You’re comparing yourself to Simone. You’re angry that she’s here. You’re questioning her time with me.”
“Yes, I’m comparing.” The admission burned, but she didn’t soften it.
“I’m comparing the way you listen when she speaks to the way you check the time when I do.
I’m comparing the meetings you protect for her to the fifteen minutes she had to find for me.
I’m comparing the way you remember what she accomplished to the way you never even asked what I said in a speech you promised to hear. ”
“She works for me.”
“And I’m your wife.”
“That should make you more secure, not less.”
“It made me easier to ignore.”
His expression hardened. “So, this is jealousy.”
“No. Listen to me.” She took a step toward him. “I’m not accusing you of touching Simone. I’m accusing you of being present. Just never with your wife.”
Gideon said nothing.
Ophelia waited. Part of her still believed that if she found the right words, his face would change. He would finally see the empty chair, the cold dinners, the phone between them in bed. He would see her.
Instead, he looked past her at the plans.
“We’re not doing this now,” he said.
The answer hurt less than she expected. She was already past hope.
“When?” she asked.
“When you’re calmer.”
“I am calm.”
“You walked into a work session and accused me of neglect because my assistant is doing the job you recommended her for.”
“I accused you of neglect because you neglect me.”
“Go to bed, Ophelia.” His voice dropped into the firm tone that ended meetings. “You’re exhausted. We’ll talk when this expansion issue is settled.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“Because it’s still true.”
“And Canal Works?”
“I’ve given you my answer.”
“Yes,” she said. “You have.”
She looked at Simone. Her friend’s face held shame and worry. Ophelia couldn’t comfort her. She had spent too long making other people feel better about pain done to her.
Then she looked at Gideon. She loved him.
The truth remained, ugly and stubborn. She loved the scar through his eyebrow and the rare smile he gave when he forgot to guard it.
She loved the man who once listened to her talk about streets and neighborhoods as if nothing could matter more.
She loved him enough that she had accepted pieces and called them a marriage.
But she couldn’t keep standing in front of him and begging to become real.
“Good night, Gideon.”
He gave a brief nod and turned back to the screen. Simone did not.
Ophelia picked up the proposal and left the office. The door stayed open behind her. Then she heard it close.
She walked upstairs. Leaving became possible before it felt like a decision.
In the bedroom, she took one bag from the closet and packed what she could carry without planning a life.
Clothes, toiletries, her laptop, the charger from beside the bed.
Her hands moved with calm purpose. She didn’t pack the framed wedding photograph from her nightstand.
When the bag was closed, she looked down at her rings.
Gideon had placed them on her hand six years ago. He had looked at her then as if the promise between them required his full attention. She had believed being chosen once meant being chosen every day after.
She slid off the diamond, then the wedding band.
In her planning studio, she set the unread proposal in the center of her desk.
She laid the cancellation notice beside it.
She placed both rings on the navy cover.
Gold, diamond, paper. Her marriage and her work, left in the same place because Gideon had treated both as things that would wait for him.
Ophelia carried her bag downstairs. Light still showed under the office door. She heard Simone speaking, then Gideon answered. His voice was intent. Interested. He didn’t hear the front door close.
Ophelia drove herself to Lincoln Park. At the first red light, her phone vibrated in the cup holder. Her heart jumped before she could stop it. It was an email about Canal Works. Of course it was. She turned the phone off.
Juliet’s greystone glowed with warm light behind the front windows. Ophelia parked, lifted the one bag from the passenger seat, and walked to the door before fear could make her sit in the car and explain Gideon to herself again.
She rang the bell.
Juliet opened the door in soft pants and an old school sweatshirt. Her gaze moved from Ophelia’s face to the bag, then to her bare left hand.
“Oh, honey.”
Ophelia had held herself together through six calls, a cold dinner, a bad joke, and the end of her marriage as she had understood it. At her sister’s voice, her breath broke.
“Can I stay here?”
Juliet reached for her at once. “You don’t ever have to ask.”
Ophelia stepped into her sister’s arms and let the bag fall inside the doorway.
Across the city, Gideon had not even noticed his wife was gone.